Initiating an Apocalypse

The giddying heights, the abysmal lows. Being published, being rejected. Opposites make excellent fodder for stories.

I was cheered by the arrival of Calliope 144, Summer 2014. My story, “Initiating an Apocalypse,” won third place in the contest for this issue, and, among other things, represents the first time my fiction has actually appeared in print form. Heights!

The story is, as the editor instantly recognized, satire. The plot revolves around a professor who lost his job and who wants the world to share his misery. Having studied ancient religions (the protagonist is based on a friend of mine) our hero calls on the ancient gods to help exact his revenge.

In the background here is Zoroastrianism, perhaps the oldest continually practiced religion in the world. The great god of the Zoroastrians was Ahura Mazda. Since the world appeared to be governed by opposites, he had a foe who was totally evil: Angra Mainyu. Zarathustra taught that the two were in constant conflict.

“Initiating an Apocalypse” imagines what might happen if the two gods came together today, in New Jersey. As it always is with gods, the results are unpredictable.

As with most stories, there is much more going on beneath the words than there is on the surface. This is a story about the despair of unemployment. We’ve all seen those self-made moguls who claim losing their job was the best thing that ever happened to them. Zair Thurston is not one of them.

The friend who gave me the idea for this story has gone through this. He lost a teaching job due to a Fundamentalist takeover and has never recovered. Some days I stop in and find him drink absinthe with the shades all pulled. At least he hasn’t invited the gods back to destroy the world yet.

In the flush of excitement of having this story accepted, I sent out six more to other journals, optimistic of a little traction. None of those were accepted. Abyss!

Life is full of contradictions. The life of the writer especially so. At least when the world ends I’ll have one story that may survive on an actual bit of paper flapping around in the poison, post-apocalyptic air.

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